After putting together a complete game in their quarterfinal defeat of Florida, the Tennessee Lady Vols fell back into their old patterns, playing well enough to hold a 31-26 halftime advantage before falling apart in the second half, eventually losing to Auburn 78-58 in the evening‘s first semifinal.  With UT holding a 4-0 lead, Lady Vol Kelly Cain went down with a right knee injury after a scary knee-to-knee collision with an Auburn player. While Cain was sent to the hospital for x-rays, UT freshman Alyssia Brewer came in and provided a huge lift, tallying 9 points and pulling down 10 rebounds (5 offensive) in the first half.

But whatever Nell Fortner said to her team at halftime provided the spark that lit an Auburn wildfire, as the Lady Tiger’s outscored the Vols 21-4 to start the second half. Auburn had a balanced scoring attack, led by DeWanna Bonner with 26 points. Whitney Boddie tossed in 19 points on 7 of 11 shooting from the field, and Sherell Hobbs added 16. Despite the return of Kelly Cain to start the second half, UT went cold from the field, hitting only 10 of their 38 second half shots. Conversely, Auburn connected on 16 of 28 shots in the second half, for a 57.1% field goal percentage. Besides Brewer’s superior efforts (she finished the game with a career-high 15 rebounds and 11 points), UT’s Angie Bjorklund seemed to almost single-handedly take over the UT offense, but it wasn’t enough to overcome Auburn’s lead.  After being held scoreless in the first half due to two quick fouls which sent her to the bench, Bjorklund led all Vol scorers with 17. 

 

The Vols hit only one less field goal for the game than Auburn, but took 19 more total shots. UT connected on 24 of 72 shots from the field for a 33.3% field goal percentage. Auburn hit 25 of their 53 shots, for a 47.2% field goal percentage. UT won the battle of the boards 45 to 36, committed 17 turnovers to Auburn's 15, but the most glaring statistic for the game was the disparity in the number of free throws attempted by each team. Auburn was deadly from the charity stripe, nailing 23 of 27 free throws for 85.2%, whereas UT only ventured to the line 11 times, hitting 7, for a 63.6% free throw percentage.

With just under 3 minutes remaining and the game firmly out of reach, UT coach Pat Summitt called a timeout and gave her Lady Vol squad an earful.  When asked in the postgame press conference what she said to her team, Summitt stated: “I never want a team to quit. I want them to compete for 40 minutes, and that’s just exactly why I went in the huddle and did what I did, because this team has to learn to compete all the time.”

 

Auburn plays Vanderbilt in the SEC Tournament Championship game tomorrow night at ALLTEL Arena in North Little Rock, AR.  UT returns to Knoxville with a 22-10 record and awaits their seeding in the NCAA Tournament.